ANNE
One truth about small towns, no matter where a person was in the galaxy: folks liked to talk.
I felt the whispers more than heard them as I walked back from the tavern after lunch a few days after the gorrel charged into town. I’d done nothing more than wave at Remmen, who was walking the other direction.
It sent tongues wagging.
We’d kept our secret for more than a month of stolen nights and one risky sleepover, but me walking away with him after he was injured set the rumors milling. I didn’t regret it and I wouldn’t have done anything different.
I loved that man. I wanted to be with him.
But neither of us had come up with a solution to the mess that was our relationship and the contract clause separating us.
Two brides by the well went quiet when I passed and started up again the second my back was to them.
Or maybe they just paused to let me by. Who could tell?
A bull touched two fingers to his brow and said afternoon, nice as you please, and I couldn’t decide if that was manners or a warning.
A month ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about any of it.
Now I was reading into every look I got, and half the time I probably had it wrong.
I spotted Nezara walking down the street and sped up, practically sprinting for my office those last few steps. She hadn’t said anything yet, hadn’t questioned. But if she did, I wasn’t sure I could give her a lie that she would believe.
This wasn’t sustainable. Especially not for the next two years, but I was too busy bouncing between one disaster and the next to figure out the solution.
Zarcal was waiting in my office when I arrived and I nearly cursed. Was I late? No. A quick glance at my watch said that he was early.
He’d taken the big chair by the window, hands folded in his lap, settled in without any hurry.
His face didn’t give me a thing, same as always.
A lot of the bulls went quiet like that, quiet sitting on top of something, and Zarcal was quieter than most. Whatever it was, he’d come fifteen minutes early to sit in my office and not tell me about it.
“How was your week?” I asked Zarcal, just as I had the last two sessions.
He shrugged. “I’ve made progress on the shed.”
“That’s good to hear. What’s the shed for?”
“Storage.” He didn’t expand and I didn’t prod more. Zarcal liked the silence, and I had no way of making him talk. That wasn’t really my job. I wasn’t here to force him to come to terms with anything twisted inside of him.
And it was almost peaceful to sit in quiet for an hour with no distractions.
I wondered if Zarcal would mind if I read a book. I didn’t ask.
So we sat. Everything in New Knossos was built minotaur-sized, my office included, and my first week the chairs had come up past my ribs and I’d felt like a kid at the grown-ups’ table every time I climbed into one.
Somewhere in the last month that had worn off.
The big chair with the cushion shoved into it was just my chair now.
The desk I had to reach up to was just my desk.
Even the door, tall enough to clear a set of horns, had stopped looking strange.
Outside, the town got on without us. Somebody was hammering away off toward the north lots, slow and steady.
A cart creaked past over the ruts. Two brides went by under the window laughing at something, gone before I caught what.
A goat lost a fight with a fence. I thought about the book in my bag again and again left it there, because it felt rude to read in front of a man who’d dragged himself all the way into town to sit in a chair and say nothing.
So I watched the light move across the floor instead, and Zarcal watched whatever Zarcal watched, and god help me, it was the most restful hour I’d had in days.
The hourglass on my desk was down to its last handful of sand when Zarcal spoke. “I get nightmares sometimes.”
“What kind?” I asked as if we hadn’t just spent most of an hour staring at the walls. I could imagine: arena sand, blood, the screaming crowds. I didn’t want to make assumptions, but it was impossible not to.
He slouched a bit in his chair. “I’m falling through the deepest darkness you’ve ever seen.
Just falling and falling and falling. I never hit the ground.
” The final grains of sand hit the bottom of the hourglass and Zarcal planted his hands on the armrest of his chair and stood. “Looks like it’s time to go.”
I almost invited him to stay a bit longer. I didn’t have another client coming, but Zarcal was already moving toward the door. “Same time next week?” I asked.
He considered me for a moment and then nodded before he walked out.
It was only a dozen words, but I’d call that progress.
I waited about fifteen minutes after Zarcal’s session to see if he’d come running back, finally ready to talk, but there was no sign of that happening.
I straightened things on my desk that didn’t need it.
Squared a stack of intake forms nobody had filled out.
Capped a pen, uncapped it, capped it again.
Then I got up and dragged one of the big chairs a foot to the left so it lined up with the other one, which did nothing at all except kill ninety seconds, which was the whole point.
What would Nezara say if she saw this? It was almost worse than being caught in flagrante with Remmen.
If I couldn’t be helpful here, there was always the clinic. I slipped the medical kit bag that I’d taken to stocking over my shoulder and headed out to Otho’s.
The walk over went easier than the walk back from the tavern had.
Or I’d talked myself down. Couldn’t tell which.
A bride I’d sat with at the welcome night flagged me down just to show me a basket of eggs like she’d laid them herself.
One of the bulls from Otho’s ward lifted his good arm at me.
Nobody went quiet, nobody stared, and by the time I got to the clinic I’d pretty much decided I’d spent half the day scaring myself over two women at a well.
Felt like an idiot for it, and glad to be one.
A look of relief washed over Otho’s face when I stepped in. “We should give you some official hours to be here,” he said. “Not that these fools break their bones when it’s convenient.” He glared at a bull cradling his arm and the bull bowed his head.
“I’m just volunteering when I can,” I reminded Otho. “And I’m not a doctor.”
“How do you think doctors are trained?” Otho demanded. “Go and be useful.”
I went and was useful. The ward ran along the back of the clinic, four long beds for the men who filled them, and today all four were full.
The bull by the door was flat on his back snoring loud enough to rattle the shutters, one splinted leg up on a folded blanket.
The next one had a bride perched on the edge of his mattress, the two of them murmuring over something that made him duck his big head and almost smile.
The third had a book propped open on his chest and didn’t look up when I passed.
The fourth was Mestyn.
Mestyn looked angrier than usual. His red skin was darkened in patches from bruises he’d taken fighting Rauf, but the bandages on his stomach were an almost pristine white. Whatever he’d done to his stitches, he hadn’t completely undone the healing.
“Has the mayor’s pet come to rub salt in the wounds?” Mestyn scowled.
I froze for half a beat and hoped he didn’t notice. “I don’t think Otho would approve if I did that. Can I check on that?” I pointed to his bandages.
“Like I can stop you.”
“I won’t force you. If you’d rather wait for Otho, that’s fine.”
He huffed. “You can do it.”
I set my bag down and pulled back the dressing on his stomach.
He let me, watching my face the whole time instead of the wound, which I didn’t love.
Underneath, it had closed up clean, the stitches holding, no heat and no smell to it.
Loud as he was, the man healed fast. I taped a fresh pad down and kept my mouth shut about what I was fairly sure of, that Otho would send him home today, tomorrow at the latest.
“What do you think?” Mestyn asked. He reached out a hand and brushed his fingers against my wrist, so quick I almost pretended it didn’t happen.
I jerked my hand back and stepped out of reach. “You’re not about to die,” I said. He was in a mood today, and it wasn’t one I wanted to be around. “I need to see to the others.”
“They’re all good,” Mestyn challenged. “Stay here for a while.” He patted an empty space on the bed beside him.
Warning bells were blaring in my head. I didn’t like this, not at all. But I pulled the chair that was pushed up against the wall closer to the bed and sat. We were in a building full of people. Mestyn was injured. Maybe he just needed someone to talk to.
“It was just supposed to be a bit of fun,” he said. “That beast liked blood and we liked giving it to her.”
“It could have hurt people in town,” I had to point out. “And Remmen told you to get rid of it.”
“So the mayor’s the only one who can break the rules?” Mestyn asked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” More ice trickled through my veins.
Mestyn didn’t clarify.
I didn’t like where he was leading this conversation, and I needed some control back. “You don’t need to fight things anymore.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s not about need, little human. Some of us still remember how to have fun.”
I was saved from having to answer that by Otho thankfully making his way into the room. He took one look at me next to Mestyn and pursed his lips. “What are you still doing here?”
I wasn’t sure which of us he was talking to.
“You don’t think she should talk to me?” Mestyn asked.
“I think you’re taking up a bed I need. You’re well enough to go, so go.” Otho glared as Mestyn made a show of getting out of the bed and putting on his muddy boots. He gave me one final nod that was almost a bow and left.
“I don’t like the way he was looking at you,” Otho said.
Neither did I. “He’s gone now. I think he was just trying to get a reaction.”
“Hmm,” was Otho’s response.
I helped him change the sheets on the bed to clean ones and prepare the slot for its next patient. “I wasn’t kidding,” he said. “I really do need an apprentice around here.”
He’d said something about that after the gorrel attack. Jealousy, hot and stupid, scored through me. I was helping here. Why did he have to go and think about getting someone else in? Wasn’t I enough?
I squashed that down.
“You’ll have to talk to Remmen about it, I guess.”
Otho opened his mouth to say more, but one of his patients groaned. While he was occupied, I slid out the door. That was enough heartache for one day.
But I was lying to myself about that, wasn’t I?
Otherwise I wouldn’t have headed to Remmen’s.
It was the last place I should go. I didn’t like the way Mestyn had asked if only the mayor had gotten to break the rules. I didn’t like the stares I got.
But I needed my minotaur’s arms right now.
It was full dark before I made myself go, and New Knossos still wasn’t asleep.
A lamp burned in the tavern window. Two bulls stood talking low outside the bunkhouse, so I gave them a wide berth, stuck to the shadows along the fences, and told my heart to knock it off.
It didn’t listen. I crept the last stretch to Remmen’s door and checked the street both ways before I crossed.
Sneaking to a man’s house in the dark. A grown woman.
He hurried me inside as soon as I arrived and didn’t need me to say anything before he opened his arms and I stepped into his embrace. Remmen held me tight enough that I was sure he’d never let go, at least not until I gave the word.
Eventually, I did.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Mestyn is… a mess.” It might have been a violation of confidentiality to say something, but at that moment I didn’t care. I laid out what was bugging me, and Remmen didn’t try and push it aside.
“He’s been a problem for a while,” he admitted. “Moving against him feels very… final. But if he’s putting the community at risk, putting you at risk, that’s unacceptable.”
“I think he was just trying to scare me.”
“You will always be safe with me,” Remmen vowed.
He kissed me, and I let myself get lost in him.
It was late when I forced myself out of Remmen’s bed. He reached out a hand and tried to pull me back down, and I went with a brief kiss before getting back up.
“I have to go,” I said. “Before people start waking up.”
He groaned, but he didn’t fight me on it.
The town was dead quiet at that hour. The forge had gone cold, the animals had settled, and there was nobody out but me.
Half the windows were dark. It was cold enough to see my breath, and the whole place smelled like hay and rain that hadn’t come yet.
I walked with my collar up and Remmen still warm on my skin, absurdly relaxed.
Remmen had firmly put Mestyn’s threats out of my mind. So when he stepped in front of me on the empty street, at first I didn’t register the threat.
Then I saw the shape of his cruel smile and my heart started thumping madly.
“Hello, lovely,” said Mestyn. “You’re out late.”